Bola Tinubu on Saturday said federal authorities must understand the deployment of brutal force alone will not be a sufficient approach towards addressing the country’s metastasising security crises, saying the government should instead emphasise other soft tactics to rescue the country from rampaging terrorists, bandits and herdsmen.  

Mr Tinubu stated this while chairing the 2021 Sardauna Memorial Lecture held on March 27 at the Arewa House, Kaduna.

While addressing the herdsmen-farmers crisis, a major driver of insecurity across the country, the former Lagos governor noted that violent crimes can only be solved through economic solutions. 

“Like I said in my recent statement on the pressing issue of the herder and farmer dispute, we must appreciate that martial security measures alone will not suffice,” Mr Tinubu said. The presidential frontrunner admitted that challenges of security, poverty and unemployment are at the core of the government’s responsibilities, 
The “problems that are essentially of an economic origin must also have an economic solution,” Mr Tinubu said.

Over 100,000 Nigerians have been killed while an estimated three million have been displaced in devastating attacks linked to Boko Haram terrorists operating in the North-East, armed bandits out of the North-West while killer herdsmen continue to overrun communities across south and central parts of the country. The crises have worsened economic conditions and national cohesion under President Muhammadu Buhari. 

Mr Tinubu however suggested that even though improved security measures are necessary, they cannot be the only steps.

“Enhanced security may be the necessary first step, but it cannot be the only step. We cannot resolve this problem by holding on to one-dimensional answers,” adding that “We must all be dispassionate in our search for solutions. These challenges are multi-faceted and so shall the solutions must be.”

Barely two weeks ago, Mr Tinubu, in a statement, recommended that herders and farmers be compensated for losses they have suffered during crisis, this, according to him will “break the current cycle of violence and poverty.”

He had also recommended that a meeting with state governors, security operatives, traditional rulers, herders and farmers’ representatives be held with a “purpose to hammer out a set of working principles to resolve the crisis.

Mr Tinubu, a leader of the ruling APC, has been nurturing plans to succeed Mr Buhari in 2023. He was a pillar of support for Mr Buhari’s successful presidential run in 2015, yet the president has continued to endure criticism for not only failing to find solutions to the crises but allowing them to spread uncurbed. 

It remained unclear whether or not Mr Tinubu has enumerated his solutions to the president before airing them publicly in press statements and podium appearances.